Postgame: Sporting Kansas City

Sunday

Oct 6, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 6, 2013 at 3:26 AM

In a game short on flow and long on choppy play, Sporting Kansas City made the one play necessary to defeat the Crew 1-0 tonight in Crew Stadium.

With both teams struggling to establish any sort of momentum, Sporting netted the lone goal of the night with Crew defender Agustin Viana flat on his back. On a Graham Zusi corner kick, Viana tried to head the ball but instead met the head of fellow defender Tyson Wahl, who was nudged by Kansas City defender Ike Opara on the far side of the Crew's penalty area. Opara got enough on the ball to keep the play alive, and Viana went down in a heap holding his head with both hands.

In a game short on flow and long on choppy play, Sporting Kansas City made the one play necessary to defeat the Crew 1-0 tonight in Crew Stadium.

With both teams struggling to establish any sort of momentum, Sporting netted the lone goal of the night with Crew defender Agustin Viana flat on his back. On a Graham Zusi corner kick, Viana tried to head the ball but instead met the head of fellow defender Tyson Wahl, who was nudged by Kansas City defender Ike Opara on the far side of the Crew's penalty area. Opara got enough on the ball to keep the play alive, and Viana went down in a heap holding his head with both hands.

As he remained on the ground inside the penalty area, the ball took a few deflections before Zusi again sent in a cross to Opara, who was suddenly wide open. He buried the chance, and that was the game. So what happened?

"I felt a collision to my head," Viana said. "(The official) saw that it was a collision between two players. In that moment you must protect the health of the players. If you don't see it, that's OK, but if you saw there was a collision I thought it was evident he was going to stop the play. I was OK, but in that moment I was scared."

Viana popped back up quickly after the goal and after being checked out quickly returned to the game. Interim coach Brian Bliss said he addressed the play with Viana at halftime.

"I didn't see a foul there," Bliss said. "I'm sure guys collided with one another. I talked to Agustin at halftime about it. I understand the head injury is a very sensitive thing and maybe he was hurt and I'll take his word for it that he was."

Midfielder Tony Tchani said he had no idea Viana was on the ground until after the goal.

"It was tough because everybody was looking at the ball," he said. "We didn't even know that Viana was down. The thing is, if you get hurt, you get out and come back in. Even the coach was kind of mad. Sometimes we just need to be tough. You can be hurt. Soccer is a tough game. Wait until the play is done and go down. We lost because of that."

Said Wahl: "He was on the ground, they recycled through their runs and because we were a man down there was a guy open. They were good on set pieces and we gave too many of them."

Higuain's hipThe Crew's top playmaker suffered some sort of hip injury early in the game and was clearly affected throughout the remainder of the night. It is not known if the injury is serious, but it was the kind of game the team's captain was not coming out of if he could help it.

"I don't know what happened but I saw him holding his side during the game," Tchani said. "I didn't ask him, because when the game is intense you don't want to come out. If he was walking and running, I assumed he was fine."

Bliss said the coaches asked Higuain about the injury during the first half and again at halftime.

"We shouted to him and said he was fine," Bliss said. "Then he would take off on a sprint and cast any doubt away. Then we asked him again at halftime how he was and he said, 'I'm good to go.' My guess is he was probably carrying something because he kept putting his hand to his hip and certainly something was hampering him. I'm not laying it on him, but it certainly wasn't his best outing. The same with some other guys."

Offensively, the Crew finished with one shot on goal – and it was Higuain on a free kick that was easily saved by Jimmy Nielsen.

"In the second half we had the ball and they laid off a little bit, which led to a lot of our possession, but we had very few answers," Bliss said. "Whether it was a final pass, maybe the final dribble for somebody to step around somebody, maybe the run was offside, whatever it was, we came up short in having an answer in the final third. That's a good team. The space in behind was very limited for our guys to get into and we couldn't execute a play, and not because we're poor. I've got to give Kansas City credit."

The pictureThe rest of Major League Soccer was not kind to the Crew this weekend. Chicago won Friday night, but Philadelphia won tonight and New England earned a stunning point against New York.

Heading into an open week, the eighth-place Crew is four points behind Philadelphia for the fifth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. A Union win next weekend would put it seven points ahead of the Crew. One more Houston or Montreal win, coupled with a Philadelphia win, would eliminate the Crew.

"Obviously we know we need help somewhere along the line, but we've got to help ourselves," Bliss said. "If we get six points, I'm not even sure that does it. We have to play like we're still in it and keep going at it because we have to show improvement as a group for that set of eight games."

EffortWhen the final whistle sounded, half the Crew's roster stood with hands on knees while a few momentarily collapsed to the ground.

This wasn't a result predicated on a lack of effort.

"I told the guys as we wrapped it up: I can't fault anybody for any kind of lack of effort," Bliss said. "It was just good defense of Kansas City and us having a lack of ability to execute a play in the final third. We came close on some restarts. One near the end of the game that Ben (Speas) clipped in to (Ryan Finley) and he had to get himself turned around. There were a couple half-chances in there that just didn't go our way."

Wahl said the feeling in the locker room was different compared to other losses earlier this season.

"I feel like at different times in the season we haven't had the right attitude when things aren't going well and we've given up a little bit," he said. "Not straight-up, lay-on-the-ground give up, but five percent decrease in focus and concentration. Tonight I don't think we did that. We let a sloppy goal go in, kind of a fluky thing, and then they did a good job sitting back and defending pretty well. They were pretty organized. I thought we kept possession well; we just couldn't penetrate and get clear chances."